What's Happening on May 27 - Saka Dawa - Enlightenment Day

The anniversary of the Buddha's enlightenment and parinirvana is this Thursday, May 27th (this year), so some of our students were wondering whether anything special was happening at our center. Essentially, we will be having the usual Thursday-night class with a special practice towards the end.

This anniversary is calculated according to the lunar calendar and falls on the full moon of the 4th lunar month. Different countries adjust their lunar calendars in different ways, so this holy day --called Saka Dawa in Tibetan and Wesak in several South Asian languages--sometimes coincides and sometimes is one month off. Japan switched their calendar to solar and so they celebrate the Buddha's enlightenment on April 15th. The Tibetan Saka Dawa comes in either May or June. Read below.

Bill Coderre said...

According to a mailing from Vajrapani, May 27, this coming Thursday, is Saka Dawa, which commemorates Lord Buddha's birth, enlightenment, and parinirvana. As cited by Lama Zopa Rinpoche virtuous actions done on this day are multiplied one hundred million times!

Any suggestions for a prayer or practice to perform on that day, especially tying into the recent DB3 "Presenting the Path" course?

May 21, 2010 10:49 PM

Dionne Wilson said...

I think we should do something... why not?? [Ananda Dharma] is doing a Vajrasattva practice that evening. We should celebrate it in some way... maybe a group reading of the Sutra of Golden Light? If we have a good sized group and each person took a page or two, it wouldn't take that long. I think if we all read it as a group it would be a bit much, right? The PDF I have of it is 104 pages but the type is large and the format is such that there isn't very much type on most of the pages. Any thoughts??

May 22, 2010 4:18 PM

Reply from Thursday-night class instructor, Emily Hsu:

In general I like the idea of doing some special practices on Sakadawa, but given the recent breaks that we've had in class I'd rather not cancel the normal Bodhisattva Conduct class this week.  We just had a two-week break last month and then another one a couple of weeks ago, and I think that a lot of interruptions interferes with the momentum of the class as well as hurts the student's learning. And Drimay and I both agree that having class is virtuous enough. 

So what I propose is to have class as usual for the first half and then do some Vajrasattva practice toward the end after the break.

But for people who would rather do a full evening of Vajrasattva practice, a puja, or something else, there are a number of other events available in the area that day.